Broadway Manor Cottages

Henry James, an American writer who settled in England and was a frequent visitor to the Cotswolds, described Broadway in 1889 as a “very old English village, lying among its meadows and hedges, in the very heart of the country, in the hollow of the green hills of Worcestershire” and that “much of the land about it are in short the perfection of the old English rural tradition”.

Broadway still delights the visitor. The geese on The Green that James went on to describe may be missing but the village’s ‘broad way’ lined with its red horse chestnut trees and honey-coloured Cotswold limestone buildings, many dating back to the 16th century with some parts of The Lygon Arms appearing to date back to the 14th century, still does not fail to charm visitors to this most picturesque English village.

Today, 198 years ago, on 7th February 1812, Charles John Huffam Dickens was born. Born in Portsmouth, Dickens was one of the most popular authors of the Victorian era. Dickens first started writing when he became a reporter, writing for London newspapers and magazines.

Dickens went on to write a great number of novels until his death in 1870. The majority of Dickens’s novels were published serially in weekly or monthly instalments by the publishers Chapman & Hall and it was Chapman & Hall that commissioned Frederick Barnard (1846 - 1896) to illustrate 9 volumes of Dickens’s works published between 1871 and 1879. These included David Copperfield, Nicholas Nickleby, Bleak House and A Tale of Two Cities.

Frederick or Fred Barnard later moved to Broadway in the 1880s with his wife Alice (nee Faraday) and they became members of the Broadway Colony of artists living in the village at that time. The daughters of Fred and Alice Barnard, Polly and Dorothy, are the two girls depicted in John Singer Sargent’s iconic painting Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose that was painted in Broadway between 1885 and 1886 and is currently on display in the Tate in London.

The inaugural Broadway Arts Festival, dedicated to John Singer Sargent RA and the Broadway Colony and celebrating Sargent’s painting Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose, is taking place in Broadway from Friday 11th to Sunday 20th June 2010. Sargent (1856 – 1925), the most acclaimed painter of the Edwardian age, painted his world-famous painting Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose whilst staying at Farnham House and Russell House with Francis Davis Millet in Broadway between 1885 and 1886.

The title of the painting comes from the song The Wreath, by the 18th century composer Joseph Mazzinghi, which was popular in the 1880s. Sargent and his circle (the Broadway Colony) frequently sang around the piano in Broadway. The refrain of the song asks the question ‘Ye shepherds tell me have you seen my Flora pass this way?’ to which the answer is ‘Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose’.  Following the exhibition of the painting at the Royal Academy in 1887, it was bought for the Tate Gallery where it is currently on display.

The Broadway Colony of artists, which also included American artists Francis Millet and Edwin Austin Abbey, writer Henry James, actress Mary Anderson, English poet Edmund Gosse, watercolourist and garden designer Alfred Parsons, will all be commemorated in the Festival, along with Sargent’s friend and illustrator Frederick Barnard, whose daughters, Dorothy and Polly are the girls seen in Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose lighting Japanese lanterns with tapers at dusk. The Tate is lending the Festival two sketches of Dorothy and Polly and these can be viewed along with other works of the period in an exhibition at Trinity House, Broadway, during the Festival.

The Festival will also feature plays (including an original play by Hugh Brewster, Canadian author who has studied Sargent, telling the story behind the iconic painting), musical concerts (including music by Joseph Mazzinghi), a flower festival in St Michael and All Angels’ Church, an Open Art Competition for artists based in Gloucestershire, Wawickshire and Worcestershire, an arts and crafts exhibition by the Gloucestershire Guild of Craftsmen in the 12th century St Eadburgha’s Church on the Snowshill Road and many other village based events for all to enjoy culminating in a village celebration on Broadway’s village green outside Farnham House.